Page 153 of Happily Never After

Charlie, looking like the President of the United States in a killer navy power suit, was staring daggers across the table at Jack, who was at least pretending to not notice. Tanya sat next to him, dressed in yet another one of her signature floral muumuus and gushing over every detail of the restaurant’s decor.

“Oh, what a lovely centerpiece,” she said, reaching out to stroke a rose petal with one finger. “We grow knockout roses at home. They’re blossoming this year.”

Brianna and Claire exchanged a glance. Pruning a thorny bush in the nude sounded terrifying to Claire, but according to Tanya, it was remarkably freeing and a way to commune with nature. What was an errant thorn to the nipple when there was nature to commune with?

Luke fiddled with his napkin. If they had been at home right now, he would almost certainly be oiling cabinet hinges or replacing lightbulbs. He was clearly uncomfortable being the only male besides Jack at the table. Bill, Charlie’s husband, hadbeen called in to a work emergency, and Charlie had refused to expose their son Ryan to Jack’s “toxic influence.” Brianna was still eschewing men after her last disastrous relationship.

Jack cleared his throat. “Claire, I meant to tell you. The dig went well. Jennifer Heiser’s body was uncovered.”

Claire’s stomach clenched. She grimaced. The image of Jennifer, the beautiful basketball player who spoke fluent Portuguese, was burned into her mind. “I’m…glad?”

Jack nodded. “Because of you, her family can have some closure.”

“Did Barney say anything else? Will he tell you more about—” A curt look from Jack cut her off.

“Why don’t we discuss that later?” Jack said. “Charlotte, how’s work going?”

Charlie wrinkled her nose. No one called her sister by her full name. “Busy. Lots of PR nightmares out here. I had TMZ quash two different stories about one of my clients just this afternoon.”

“I think you need new, less problematic clients,” Claire commented over a piece of bread.

Charlie shook her head and lowered her voice. “Big Z is a goldmine for a publicist. There’s always something to cover up or spin, and at this point, I know so many of his secrets that he has to keep paying me to keep quiet. Same with Lady Larissa. If I went to the news and told them what kind of beauty treatments she was into, she would be cancelled before the end of this sentence.”

Claire shuddered. What the hell was Lady Larissa doing for beauty treatments? Bathing in the blood of virgins?

“Sounds like very interesting work, sweetheart,” Tanya said earnestly.

Charlie’s eyes moved over Tanya’s body like an X-ray machine at an airport. Claire could practically hear Charlie’sinternal thoughts about being called “sweetheart” by the woman who broke up her parents’ marriage.

“It is,” she said after a beat. “What do you do for work, Tanya?”

Tanya leaned forward. A bit of her blond hair dragged through the butter dish. “I’m a bit of an entrepreneur,” she whispered conspiratorially. “How much do you know about essential oils?”

“Oh, look,” Brianna interrupted loudly. “Food!”

Charlie, a carnivore through and through, dug into her prime rib. She made steady eye contact with Jack as she cut through it. Jack cleared his throat again and stuck a fork into his vegan pasta dish. Tanya took one bite and exclaimed for a full five minutes about the blend of flavors.

Luke squeezed Claire’s thigh twice under the table—his agreed-upon nonverbal cue that she was making a stress face.

“I can see why this restaurant’s your favorite, Charlie,” Claire said, spearing some roasted chicken on her fork. “Is there where you and Bill had your first date?”

“You know that it is,” Charlie said, sopping up some of the juice that had leaked out of the prime rib and shoveling it into her mouth. “You used to love prime rib, Jack. Didn’t Mom make that on your birthday? You know, the last one right before you abandoned the family.”

Jack wiped his mouth on his napkin and set it on his lap. “I’ve made a lot of changes in the past two decades, Charlotte. Go on and say what you want to say.”

Charlie banged both of her hands on the table. She hit her fork, which spun into the air and clattered onto the floor.

Claire held her breath. Luke stroked her hand under the table.

“Didn’t you ever feel guilty, even for a minute? Sleeping with the woman from the health food store.” Charlie paused, stabbinga finger at Tanya. “Betraying your marriage to a hard-working woman, not even having the common sense to use protection, bringing this perfect human specimen into the world?”

Brianna’s face flushed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup again, and she was, as always, lovely. The makeup-free complexion must have come from Tanya.

Claire braced. Charlie was just warming up. This molten flood of feelings had been brewing for two decades. The only reason they hadn’t come out at Thanksgiving was because of Claire’s careful refilling of wineglasses.

“Did you feel nothing? Did we mean nothing to you?” Charlie leaned forward and stared Jack in the eyes with a look that made Claire’s toes curl. “Didn’t you care that you left your wife and two daughters all but destitute in a stupid apartment full of spiders? I had to start working another part-time job to help pay the electric bill. I was sixteen, Jack. You stole my teenage years from me.”

Jack dropped his fork and sat back in his chair. “As I have explained to your sister?—”

---